There are numerous instances where articles at a given site are damaged by environmental events, such as smoke related to an on-site fire and/or site flooding (either natural or man-made (e.g., potable or non-potable water conduit breaks). When exposed to these environmental events, it is oftentimes more cost-effective to the owners and/or insurers to remediate if at all possible the damaged articles to their original state prior to being damaged by the environmental event.
The type of damage will dictate the remediation effort and the equipment involved in such remediation. Thus, for example, in the case of water-damaged articles, the remediation effort will likely include exposing the articles for a sufficient time to a controlled dehumidifying environment. Similarly, smoke-damaged articles may be remediated by exposing the damaged articles for a sufficient time to a controlled ozone environment. Suffice it to say, that remediation of such environmentally damaged must be conducted in a closed chamber space in which the interior environment can be controlled by suitable atmospheric inputs and outputs.
Conventional remediation efforts for environmentally damaged articles typically involve a remediation specialist physically removing the damaged article from the damage site and then transporting them to a remote warehouse location equipped with static remediation chambers. Depending on type of environmental damage, the articles may then be remediated within the static chambers by controlling the atmosphere within the chamber and transported back to the damage site (after of course the site has itself been remediated) where they may be placed once more into active service.
As can be appreciated, the removal and transport to/from the environmentally damaged site adds substantial costs to the remediation effort. It would therefore be especially desirable if mobile on-site remediation chambers could be provided so that environmentally damaged articles could be remediated at or near the damage site thereby avoiding the need to physically transport the damaged articles to a remote off-site location. Such on-site remediation would then translate into substantial cost savings for the remediation effort as transportation of many (if not all) of the damaged articles to/from the site of the environmental event could be eliminated. It is towards fulfilling such needs that the present invention is directed.